City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. It's great to see everyone here tonight. And before we call the meetings to order and go into our Air Park Authority meeting, Pastor Mark Fryer from Crossbridge Nazarene Church is going to offer a word of prayer and then we'll have a flag salute. Mark.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day that you've given us. We thank you for the presence that you give to each of us, Father. And we just ask that in tonight's proceedings and the business, Lord, that you would just give each council member wisdom, give each person here tonight the wisdom that they need as we seek to make El Reno the best community there is. And we just thank you for this opportunity that we have here tonight. And we pray this in your son's name. Amen. Amen. Mark, thank you.

Join with me in the flag salute.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. It is 531. Call the El Reno, not the Recreational Authority. That's yours. Air Park Authority meeting to order on this Tuesday, September 8th, 2026. Start with the roll call vote starting with Trustee Black. Here.

Vice Chairman Jensen.

Here.

Trustee Brothers. Here. Trustee Nethery. Here. Chairman Schaffer.

Here. Consent agenda, the following items are considered to be routine by the El Reno Air Park Authority will be enacted with one motion. Should discussion be desired in any one item, that item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. We only have two.

Move to approve items 1 and 2.

Second. Motion made and seconded. Roll call vote starting Trustee Black. Yes.

Vice Chairman Jensen. Yes. Trustee Brother. Yes. Trustee Nethering. Yes. Chairman Schaefer.

Yes.

Move to adjourn.

Second.

Motion made and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Okay, it's now 5.32 and I call the El Reno Recreational Authority regular meeting of Tuesday, September 8th to order with a roll call starting with Trustee Schaefer. Here.

Trustee Jensen?

Here.

Vice Chairman Brothers? Here. Trustee Nothery? Here. Chairman Black?

Here. Brings us to the consent agenda. The following items are considered to be routine by the El Reno Recreational Authority, and they'll be enacted with one motion. Should discussion be desired on any item, that item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. We have items one and two.

Move to approve items one and two.

Second. Can't get a motion. First and second. If we can have a roll call starting with Trustee Schaefer. Yes.

Trustee Jensen? Yes. Vice Chairman Brothers? Yes. Trustee Nethery? Yes. Chairman Black? Yes. Move to adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. 533, I call the El Reno Municipal Authority regular meeting of Tuesday, September 8th, 2026 to order. Roll call starting with Trustee Nethery.

Here. Trustee Brothers? Here. Vice Chairman Black? Here. Trustee Schaefer? Here. Chairman Jensen?

Here. Consent agenda. Following items are considered to be routine by the El Reno Municipal Authority will be enacted with one motion. Should discussion be desired on any item, that item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. We have items one and two.

Move to approve items one and two. Second.

Motion made and seconded. Roll call starting with Trustee Schaefer. Yes.

Vice Chairman Black? Yes. Trustee Brothers? Yes. Trustee Nothery? Yes. Chairman Jensen?

Yes. Nothing was pulled. Brings us to item F, discussion items. Discussion, consideration, action, and or possible amendments to select census as the cities of El Reno's new water meter system with UTS Supply Company serving as the local supplier. Chris?

We have gone out and looked at several cities and what they're using for their metering for the water. Their life is about 10 to 15 years. We've reached that with our current system, and we went out and chitchat, talked to Norman, and this guy right here has got the latest, greatest thing, and I'll let him talk about it more than Right now, we have a drive-by system. You have to drive by. This will be able to be read from City Hall. Push a button, 30 seconds, all the meters are read down.

And you've been working on this for over a year?

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. I might add, too, just real quick. The reason this came about was our ordering systems were no longer able to, or having a tough time, Able to find parts to repair when they, when they go out and they're not manufacturing any new. And so again, this has been going on for some period of time, but that's the reason I'm asking now having with us today.

Yeah, and so obviously what y'all have right now is getting towards the tail end of its life and obviously not working up to the par that it probably should be. And so obviously Chris and I have been working on this for quite some time and Shane. and Jamie as well. And there's three things that make us different than everybody else. So the first being that when the FCC pager channel went out back in the 90s, Census went out and purchased that FCC licensing. And what that allows us to do at Census is we can transmit our radio at two watts of power because we have our own FCC licensing. So what that means is two watts of power, we can reach further, you can read meters further with our radio. So the FCC licensing, the two watts of power, and our warranty, we will give you a 15-year full warranty on the meter and the radio, plus a five-year proration on that as well. So we give you an extra five years more than any other vendor on the market. So those are the three things that make us shine. And obviously, we're located about 26 minutes. We're on Morgan and Reno is where our office is at. We've got a ton of inventory in warehouse. And like Chris said, Chickasha, Anadarko, Norman, Midwest City. Union City right down the road all have our meters and have for quite some time. So we've got several systems in the state, about 160 to be exact, so 170-ish. Any questions for me, obviously, feel free.

I have a question. In light of recent events in our community, what difference would this system have made?

Yeah, so I know we've been talking about here like I think a three-year project to get to full capacity. But say you were full capacity and everything was reading. With our commercial meters, our commercial meters have temperature and pressure on them. So you would be able to notice where a certain sector isn't performing up to the pressure that it's supposed to, and that would red flag you saying I have a pressure loss issue, and you would have been able to find that sooner. That is correct.

Any other questions?

Yeah, and obviously if there's an angry customer that calls and says, I didn't use that much water, they can get a hold of Jamie or the ladies that are in her office. You can log in straight to the account. You can see what it's doing every hour on the hour. And Census Analytics stores three years' worth of information. So none of that information, you know, you have a plethora of information that you can go off of.

What's the lifespan of these meetings? We're 15, you said, on our others.

Yeah, there were 10 years on what you currently have. They're 20. They're 15 and 5, so we guarantee 15 years full and the 5 years on the first. City of Ada right now has had us for almost 20 years, and they still have stuff that is functioning the way it should.

In a way, I understand a system homeowners or customers can... sign up or uh... joined to at no cost to them to there is no idea that'll that'll give them if it'll notify them say if they have a leak at their house or something there is definitely a way to do that um census had that um

that adder on there they have taken that piece away but we can still team up with a company that does that the one thing that i would say is uh... what we have found is typically about ten percent of customers actually sign up for that stuff so what we have noticed that it's kind of a Um, it's an expense that doesn't get used all that much. And so what we do is we will set up Jamie and her ladies in the office and the alarm that, um, continuous consumption, for instance, if a radio run or if a meter runs nonstop for 24 hour period, it'll red flag you. And then she will get that every morning, her and her ladies will in the morning. And then she will be able to contact that customer and say, Hey, you have a meter that has been running nonstop, get ahold of them. And you'll save a giant water bill from. Turning into a real big water bill, right?

Yeah, I spent the day fixing the water We said it would be about three years before we were fully online. What is year one look like?

Yeah, so I believe right now is um on the pricing if I could In how many meters was it a hundred percent? I think we went for book Yeah, I think it's 1 through 13. Route 1 through 13. Yeah, so 24. So you'll see in the second box down where it says smart point single port, that is the radio that will be through the meter can lid. And there will be 2,473 of those with meters to complete radio. First phase which would be I believe it was books 1 through 13 We tried to be strategic about that because you want to complete a book You don't want to just kind of end midway.

It just makes it a lot easier in the office And it's initially pull down so everything in thirds took the total amount and divided getting 2700 I'm sorry 2473

And that might that might vary a little bit from going from book 14 to wherever that we stop on the next one But yes, it's gonna be roughly around the 24 2500 mark. Yeah accounts is that how many water accounts we have

Any other questions? OK.

These meters also have four repeat offenders to be able to be shut off from city hall. You can push a button, and it'll shut the water off.

Yeah, we have a meter that has a valve internal in it, and you put that on your repeat customers that you're shutting off every single month, and then the ladies in the office can log into that account, and as soon as that radio hears that command, it'll turn the valve off inside the meter, so you don't have to roll a truck. You save the cost of doing all of that. Midwest City has roughly 4,500 of those in their system because of the base, so many turn-on turn-offs, and then Chickasha, that's all they're buying now is Allies. the remote disconnect meter.

What's that going to do for you, Chris, as far as staff goes?

Because I see that it also is going to add two more people. What kind of impact does that have on you?

In the long run, we're not driving around. It takes four to five days to drive around and do the whole thing. So as the radios quit working, we have to go back and manually read the dial. So whatever didn't come in on that computer, they'll go, oh, these 30 meters didn't send over.

We have to manually go back out, open it, and look at it.

and then on cutoff day. I think it's going to help the citizens out more than it is with us because if they have a problem, we have to drive out, do a profile on a computer and go, okay, it started last Tuesday and you've got something going on and it's still going on. This will alert them and we can tell them you've got something going on right now instead of when they get their bill go, why do I have a $300 water bill? Well,

We'll have to go out and find out what's going on. We might add, too, this also reduced the cost. We could do it, install it ourselves for less in total over the three-year period than what we could have paid to have it done.

And last time when we had an outside company doing it, they broke stuff.

The nice thing is you'll be responsible for your own. Yeah, we do install, but it doesn't hurt my feelings at all if you want to do it because that's just one less thing we have to manage. So, yeah, doing your own install I think is a wonderful way to go, to be honest with you, because you're your own inspector. And then your guys will turn into, they will be proactive on, they'll turn into their own work order system. So they will log into Census Analytics every morning. It's a platform on a tablet or their phone. They'll see what isn't reading. They will go out before Jamie and the ladies send them a work order, and they'll be proactive. They'll fix it before she even knows about it, and then they will notify her, and it'll just be a lot more efficient.

Sounds good.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you for your time.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Move to approve the selection of census as the City of El Reno's new water meter system with UTS Supply Company serving as the local supplier. Authorize staff to proceed with Phase 1 purchasing and implementation in accordance with the approved budget and applicable purchasing requirements. Second.

Motion made and second. Roll call starting with Trustee Nathalie.

Yes.

Yes.

Move to adjourn. Second.

Motion made and seconded and adjourned. All those in favor say aye. Aye. We're adjourned. It's now 545 and I call the El Reno City Council regular meeting of Tuesday, September 8th, 2026 to order. Roll call starting with Councilwoman Nethery.

Here. Councilwoman Brothers. Here. Vice Mayor Black. Here. Councilman Schaefer. Here. Mayor Jensen.

Here. Consent agenda the following items are considered to be routine by the Oriental City Council will be enacted with one motion should Discussion be desired on any item that item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately of items one through seven Let's remain seconded roll call starting with councilwoman another Yes Yes Yes motion passes Nothing was pulled, brings us to item F, audience participation. Anyone having an item of business to present to the City Council that does not appear on the agenda, please come to the podium at this time, state your name, you're requested to limit your presentation to three minutes. Any item being presented must pertain to the City of El Reno business. The Oklahoma Open Meetings Act prohibits the City Council from taking official action on requests made during this portion of the agenda unless otherwise noted on the agenda. Anyone?

Jerry Lingo.

Can you state your address?

1807 South Radio Road. Here about kind of goes with what you just passed about cleaning up the city. I don't know if you all drove around a few miles outside the core part of El Reno, but trash is a major problem. People have not been illegal. Just to give you an example, about two or three months ago, we caught someone dumping, fixing to dump. They had their straps off, fixing to dump all their trash. I ran them off. I followed them, called the police. Police came out. We caught them. And they talked to them. They said, we can't do anything because they actually didn't dump any trash. Even though it was dark, we knew what was happening. Go back to August 22 of this year. I catch someone on Elm Street dumping between Alpha Dell and radio. Got pictures of them. Pulled up on them as they were getting back in their vehicle. Call the police. They show up. Don't write them a ticket. Just let them go. And, you know, the guy came up to me, and I told him to stay away from me. And he said, what can I do? I said, I'd pick up that stuff. Well, first he said, I didn't dump it. I said, I would pick it up. So he put it on his trailer, had it on his trailer by the time the police got there. I figured they was going to give him a ticket at least. And they come to me, oh, we decided it wasn't worth giving him a citation. And I just couldn't believe it. I mean, we're dealing with trash. I ask you to drive out Elm Street toward Evans and look at all the trash. We can't even get in one place because someone Saturday night dumped a bunch of fence panels, tires, and everything in our gate. So it's a major problem. I mean, I ask if you raise your fines. I don't know what the fine actually is. I think they said it's $135. Raise it to $500 or $1,000. If they can't pay it, put them on a chain game, make them come out here and clean this stuff up. But I did call to talk to the police chief. He didn't call me back for a week. It happened right before the water leak. And he said he was busy with that, which I understand. He didn't know anything about it. He said he'd call me back. I haven't heard anything back.

When was that?

August 22nd, on a Saturday. And, I mean, I know we're only going to catch one out of 20, maybe, the dump, because they do it at night. But the ones we catch, we need to make an example out of. So, I think that's about all I got. This is in part... where a lot of this trash is, it's not in the part you try to annex. I mean, it's a major problem. I mean, you probably see it when you drive around. I mean, go down Choctaw a couple miles, there's trash all over the place, much less southeast and southeast of town. So I'll just ask you to try to look at these laws and make it where we can punish them when we do catch them.

That's all I got. Thank you. Anyone else? Brings us to item 8A, presentation by Fries and Nichols regarding the El Reno Mobility Hub and downtown El Reno projects. Mr. Hazard.

So from my presentation last time I was at council, I outlined a number of projects in my background with the city. I've been working in El Reno with staff and in the community for over three years now, starting all the way back with the Adams Park master plan. During that process, I went to just about every festival that you had and met hundreds of people throughout your community. And that was a really good experience. It showed me what El Reno is about. I got to see some pretty cool stuff. You guys have some great festivals. And since then, there's been a couple of projects as well. More recently, the filling station that I completed at a previous employer with team members here in the room as well. An extremely successful project has brought an enormous amount of traffic and visitors and community pride to El Reno since that was completed in May of last year. Since that project was completed, I've moved over to Brees and Nichols. And with that, brought project experience and knowledge from the filling station of that year-long construction period. And as we have been fortunate to get and secure additional funding for the hub project just across the street, bringing that project experience over, bringing the team with that. We've been waiting on utilities to be coordinated for the site to be mitigated. Several tanks, old gas tanks, were removed from the site and mitigated. And it's been kind of in preparation mode. So we've already been working on this project for over a year now by securing grant funding and coordinating some of the other pre-work activities really at risk and in support of the community and a project that I believe in. The Hub is an extremely exciting project. It builds on the momentum that you all have seen with the filling station, builds on the investment that the state has put in to the entire 66 corridor throughout the state, and really placed yourself as gaining national attention for what you're doing in your community and reinvesting really in the core of your downtown. If you follow any sort of Facebook page about Route 66 or tourism or anything, you will see just the glowing reviews about the staff that work there, the project, and what it means to people. And more so what that means is they remember El Reno for a very positive reason. They have a reason to come back. They have a reason to stop and go to your restaurants and stay in your hotels. Lieutenant Governor actually just posted last week, I believe, that El Reno is seeing hotel-motel tax up at its highest level, among other communities that they've also invested with their grant funds. I say all that to say the hub is the next step. It's the way to build on that. And we're proposing bringing a good solid team that will address architecture, structural engineering, electrical engineering, geotechnical to deal with some of the soils, landscape architecture, and environmental graphics team to provide you all Something again that you can be extremely proud of and build on your momentum reinvesting your community Provide a place for the community to gather for burger day and for other amazing events that you have But also to encourage economic development so with catalyst projects like this what you all are doing Spurs on development elsewhere in your downtown. It creates a sense of pride and you know, the old adage of the fence that needs repaired. Well, you all are repairing your fence. You're being a good neighbor. It's encouraging that improvement elsewhere in your community. I'm excited to start on this project. I think it's long overdue. We've been waiting a long time to see this come to fruition, and I'm happy to answer any questions should you have any.

Any questions? You might add that James has been working on this for over three years, this whole concept, and the success that we have found at the filling station. I checked with Lindsay late last week, and we're at over 70 visitors from over 70 different countries, every state in the United States at least once. Over the weekend, there was a post where we had five gentlemen that were from Italy that were making the motorcycle ride Route 66. So there's been a lot of benefit, a lot of activity from there. Additionally, I mean, our thought is it's going to add to the downtown, the concept of the downtown. It's going to add additional parking spaces. That's kind of the reason for that coming into play. and create some additional resources for our community. If you've been to Burger Day, if you've been to Small Town Weekend, you've been to the Veterans Parade, Christmas Parade, those are the most bigger events. There's no place to park downtown. And we recently counted the parking spaces and I submit to you that The 200 and some of them that are available downtown are easily filled up during those type of events. So that's another purpose. The other thing we're partnering with the Catholic Church to make that one big parking area and the presentation is the overall appearance. So it's a good deal. Right across the street at the And Mother Roe Plaza, another item will come up here shortly. In addition to that, that's being sponsored and put on by our civic groups, our local civic groups, the Kiwanis Club and the two other. It's a great project. Thank you for your attention.

Plus to capitalize on the gift from Universal in the trolley from the movie. I mean, that itself will draw people, and we have no place currently to display that.

So what all will be at the Mobility Hub? Do you want to give them a...

Yeah, so we starting with the wall that is remaining on the site So we wanted to preserve historic character also provide a place for additional placemaking Again to make this a very unique site We had the opportunity with the filling station with unique signage and really capitalizing on the architecture and some of the outdoor elements That is kind of the first step in that In addition, we would be building a facade to enclose the parking lot to give that additional character and unique placemaking as well. With that facade, we're also integrating or adjacent to shade structures for visitors and people that would be in the space. That facade also supports exterior lighting, so it'll help with safety and security around the site, but also the intersection as well, which is future project but this kind of tees that up and puts the infrastructure in place. In addition to that it will be kind of you know at its core a place for the community to come during the festivals and whether that's parking solely or other gatherings places it's the hub it's where you meet your family and go into downtown it's it's a safe logical place to park your car look at a map and go find businesses. There's going to be the trolley exhibit as well with the twisters. And then with that, we'll be providing landscape to meet code, EV parking for electronic vehicles we're sourcing. State funding to also pay for that portion of the project that will be deferred until a future phase, but we're going to put the infrastructure in to start with, and we'll want to capitalize on state funding later on when that's available. In addition, what we've seen actually, and you can, you know, talking to the staff at the filling station, people will park their car in the middle of the road, an RV or a trailer, because there is no place to park. And so this will also provide a place for people to pull in their RVs, their trailers, with larger spaces when they're needed and then smaller spaces in the interim times during festivals or whatever the demand is at the time. Additionally, 66, there's been a large number of tour buses, coaches that have come through, and this would also provide a place for that. So it's really kind of a multi-use facility to meet all types of travelers. In addition, bike parking and motorcycle parking as well. So really thinking about who's going to be using the space in addition to the community so that it's well used.

When we're talking about the placemaking and making it sort of a community hub, what's going to separate it from Petrie Plaza, which is across the street?

Yes, so Petrie Plaza, I mean, it's a great space. It also has been, as we've looked at this project, the filling station, we've actually looked at what a larger improvement to the entire intersection might be, just so we can understand how the pieces would fall into place as future phases may come online. In fact, you know like we're talking about later tonight with the mother of Plaza those improvements were built on previous master planned Ideas so that when a group in the community comes along with a great idea We know exactly where to put it and where it may cause the least amount of conflict for future phases How this is different than Petrie Plaza is really using that existing wall for a lighted art sculpture that would really make the space warmer, more inviting, rather than just being a parking lot. And since we don't have the space to put a lot of landscape, we're trying to beautify and make it as inviting as we can for travelers that have been on the road. In addition to that, we're adorning the facade with really gateway or wayfinding type neon signage that would set that apart as well.

I'm kind of coming in on the tail end of this, so this is probably something that's common knowledge, but was there any sort of utilization data done, a parking study, anything like that that would show that there is a huge need for it more than just three days a year?

So as part of a formal study, I'm not aware of one. But in my attending Burger Day and some of the other festivals downtown, I've experienced it myself having to park and walk in with my kids in tow. And so I've seen it firsthand. But also, as the filling station has come online, like I mentioned, RVs parking in the middle of the highway and just inadequate parking spaces for the people that are already coming here and don't have a place to park their vehicles. This provides that.

One thing I might add, I mean, people are coming and they're stopping. Just yesterday, a large... Motorcycle group came through El Reno. You could tell that they were traveling to down Route 66. They had a van following carrying a spare motorcycle. You know, their destination was Santa Monica. But this morning there was at one of the filling stations in El Reno was over 30 motorcycles parked. You could tell the people were from Europe. And I didn't stop and talk to them, but I was hauling cattle into OKC West today, and this gentleman walked up to me, and you could tell he wasn't from around here. I said, where are you from? He said, I'm from Ireland. He said, I'm a farmer traveling Route 66 with my family, but I wanted to stop at the cattle auction and see how Americans bought and sold cattle, and he watched us unload one of our trucks and stuff. So they are coming through, and they are stopping. And it's just, there's even more than what we even realize.

I've seen a need for downtown parking on Friday and Saturday nights with Freeman's in the theater. If there's something in the theater, you're not parking on Rock Island, you're not parking on Russell, you probably could find a place over, I'm sorry, you're not parking on Baker Road, you probably could find a place over on Rock Island, but there's a shortage of parking Friday and Saturday nights.

Would this project include any sort of safety for crossing the street into downtown, or is it limited just onto that lot?

In this particular phase, not immediately, but we are providing that infrastructure from our previous experience on the filling station where we understand the challenges at that intersection and are working towards providing a solution to that being a pretty significant priority. Previously, when the filling station didn't exist, there wasn't a draw on that side of the street except for City Hall and the courthouse, but specifically at that intersection, Since it's come in, I mean, the number of times I've stopped at the filling station, I've seen people get out, they'll tour around the filling station, and then they walk into downtown. And the filling station, as you know, is somewhat limited in the parking itself, especially whenever you have three Corvettes in front of the mural, there's no place to park. But I've seen people with, again, kids in tow trying to make it across that with no signals. That is definitely a priority.

I might throw out on top of that, we have received Streetscape Phase 1 funding from the state, which we're beginning to go down the process of engaging the designers for that project, but that Phase 1 will include rebuilding the signalization and the sidewalks at their Sunset and Choctaw, and also at Rock Island and Wade.

Can you talk a little bit about the money? The budget for the whole project is 2.3, is that right? Or 2.03?

Yeah, $2,030,000.

And then the 66 grant will cover $725,000 of that. $725,000. Correct. And the balance will be made up with?

Using oil and gas royalties from the lake. The lake royalties.

And as is standard in any project I do, as we approach design and funding, there's a series of milestones that we'll submit for staff review, 30, 60, 90, and final. At those reviews, we'll work with the construction manager to identify costs within the project. And if anything is exceeding budget, we have the opportunity to value engineer or design create the documents in a way that there are ad alternates. So if something is exceeding cost and not a critical priority to the project, that can be removed from the project but still bid on and allow us to have a full picture of what the costs are. So we'll do all of our due diligence and our very best effort to keep the project at or under budget. I think the mitigation or remediation that the state commission provided for the site saved a ton of money that they did prior to us getting into the design work. So there are, in addition to the grant funds, a lot of other state resources that have already been applied to this that are allowing the city to reinvest in this property at a reduced cost.

James, can you just, if you know it off the top of your head, how many places does this add? And I know there's motorcycle and there's a couple big RV, but just phase one, how many places does it add?

Yeah, and I'm getting the numbers mixed up with Mother of Plaza. I want to say 19, if I'm not mistaken, including EV spaces, which would be designated regular parking for now, plus motorcycle parking as well.

And then if and when the Catholic Church comes on board, is that expected to add How many more do we know yet?

Yeah, we did an initial concept layout, but that will have to change based on the property that they ended up coming forward with. I would say the additional spaces gained from that would probably be in the 40 range at a minimum, but that's just out of thin air. That's kind of my gut feeling, but we'll definitely take a look.

That part's not included in this number, right? Or it is? It is. Okay. So what would change that? How would we so we would partner with the Catholic Church to get more parking spaces?

So we're looking at like 40 total or You would you would be somewhere in the 50 to 60 range and that's where the partnership with the church really is a benefit With that kind of split function on the project the city would be able to use parking spaces on church property in this arrangement

But what was the 19 that you said?

I believe that's the number of spaces in the hub side alone. Okay. Because we have to offset from the street. As a part of the project that's planned, we would be modifying the curb radii there to, like we did at the filling station, to make turning movements for 18-wheelers better so that they don't run over your signal poles.

James, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think at this point the understanding and the discussions that my office has had with you all and the Catholic Church is that this is all going to come together at the same time. And there's going to be an agreement in place with them before everything is started. And right now the holdup is just the utilities and making a decision on the line that needs to be buried. there's already discussions about making sure this comes up online together and and putting an agreement in place which would obviously come back to the council before um that's finalized so that's one little piece that we've been working on if we could actually meeting with father warren we expect the grant to be right for council approval either october or the november meeting

And I would also add that that's an added benefit to the project as well. With additional materials, you'll see efficiency costs for concrete and other materials, savings on the city's portion of the project.

Any other questions?

You've been working on this for three years, so you've also worked on the downtown streetscapes.

But you were working with a different firm at that time.

Right. And with the hub, that's why we followed you over to Farisa Nichols. So that's kind of why we've gone over there. And I think you need to be taking over the streetscapes as well in downtown because the other firm has not been very responsive to us.

Certainly that same historical knowledge that I've seen with the filling station in the hub Have a similar understanding of downtown as well. In fact, we've mapped out every drainage inlet already and understand the 88 challenges Basement locations.

There's there's a lot of there's a lot of history in downtown You've done some work on the mother of Plaza as well as the petri plazas Is this not a service that goes out for bid I

You said that it came over. This one did not.

I do believe it did. I don't remember.

So this is a professional service. State law does not allow us to bid professional services. However, we can either just outright select who we typically use or we can go for request for proposals. But we cannot make the selection based off of pricing law.

Okay. RFP only.

Yeah. Yeah, RFP or RFQ. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Members of State B, discussion, consideration, action, and or possible amendments regarding the approval of task authorization number one with Freeze and Nichols Incorporated for the El Reno Mobility Hub project.

Move to approve task authorization number one with Freeze and Nichols for the El Reno Mobility Hub project.

Second.

Motion made and second. Roll call started with Councilwoman Nethery.

Yes. Councilwoman Brothers.

no yes yes yes motion passes item 9 discussion consideration action and or possible amendments regarding resolution number 27-007 a resolution of the City Council of Elrond Oklahoma the city declaring the intent to consider approval of a project and creation of a tax increment district under the Local Development Act directing preparation of of a project plan, appointing a review committee, directing the review committee to make findings as to eligibility and financial impact, if any, on taxing jurisdictions and business activities within the district, directing the review committee to make a recommendation with respect to the proposed project plan, directing the planning commission to make a recommendation with respect to the proposed project plan and containing other provisions related thereto.

That's a lot. I'm going to pinch hint here for Nate Ellis, who is our lawyer that's on this with the public law finance group. He was not available to be here tonight. And there's a reason why we hire specialists to do things like this is because it can get pretty complicated. But what we are doing tonight is, and I think the attorney for the development group is here if you want to say anything else about it. or correct me if I'm wrong on how this process works. We are essentially, this council is allowing this to move forward as sort of a feasibility type study. If you'll notice here, declaring the intent to consider approval of a project in a TIF district. And so state law under the Local Development Act has a laundry list of requirements that have to be accomplished before you can create a TIF district. And so this is the very first step in doing that. And the Public Law Finance Group and their lawyers have helped the city before on these types of projects. And so that is what I know about this at this point. I can try to answer any questions that you might have. According to the resolution, I believe that the City Council needs to designate a chairperson who is going to be a representative from the City Council to serve on this project committee, as well as a designated person from the Planning Commission. We appoint that person. I think that if you would like to pass this resolution, please also make mention of those two names so that we can get this filled in for Nate and his team and that can move forward.

Do you know what exactly they'll have to review? Is that going to be that review committee? Are they the ones that will have to look at the impact on the schools?

Yes. The schools are part of that requirement.

If you look at section two of this resolution, that shows you all of the entities that are going to be a part of this review committee. So yeah, Canadian County, the Health Department, School District 34, School District 29, which is Riverside, the BOTEC, three members of the public at large. So yeah, it's a whole slew of folks that will take a look at this process and see if it works.

Was she looking at you? Are you counsel? Yes. What is that review process like?

Roger, would you come up to the podium?

Roger Reinhart, I represent the TBM Land Holdings Group, the prospective developer for this property. Like your counsel, I'm somewhat familiar with the TIF project outline. It's a process set up by statute. You first have to approve the resolution, then you appoint your representative members, and then the various entities represent someone to be their representative on the committee. Then they meet, discuss this, they look about the impact of what this tax increment set aside would have on them. You're essentially taking property that is not paying taxes today, or paying very minimal real estate taxes, and looking at what the increment increase would be if it is developed. I think we can all agree the land in question there on 27th Street is underdeveloped. It's been underdeveloped my whole lifetime. And it's surrounded by some pretty intensive uses. You've got a auto body repair shop, trailer park, a car dealership. So you're going to be kind of limited. It's not somewhere where I think you'd see residential housing go in or high-end retail. So I think this proposal seems to be a really good fit for tax increment financing. We would request that you proceed forward with it. Again, you're not adopting it. You're just appointing the committee to study it and see if it works.

This is just the first step.

That's right. That's right. And Mr. Ellis and his group, public finance law group, has done these throughout the state. And they've assisted the city of Ballerina with other projects, other TIP projects as well, as well as your neighbors to the east. They just did a big one for Yukon that's going really well now.

Well, I'd make a motion to approve resolution number 27-007, appointing Steve Jensen as the chairman and Kevin Stump as the planning commission representative.

Motion made and seconded. Roll call starting with Councilman Schaefer. Yes.

Vice Mayor Black. Yes. Councilman Brothers. Yes. Councilman Nethery. Yes. Mayor Jensen.

Yes. Motion passes. Brings us to item 10, discussion consideration action under possible amendments regarding a project cost reimbursement agreement by and between the City of El Reno, Oklahoma, the city and TBM land holdings LLC the company relating to the reimbursement of certain cost incurred by the city in connection with the consideration of creating a tax increment district This agreement outlines those project costs and

as far as what can be reimbursed to the city in figuring out if this is gonna work or not.

We're reimbursed even if the TIF ultimately isn't approved. Isn't that right? Is that right? That's how I read this agreement.

Well, I'll make a motion to approve the project cost reimbursement agreement by and between the City of El Reno and TBM Land Holdings.

Second.

Motion made and seconded. Roll call starting with Councilwoman Nethery.

Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Black? Yes. Councilman Schaffer? Yes. Mayor Jensen? Yes.

Motion passes. Item 11, discussion, consideration, action, and or possible amendments to recommend approval of a partial vacation of Crossroads Point Phase 2, a recorded subdivision, Platte and Canadian County for the purpose of vacating a 25-foot cross-access easement located along the eastern boundary of Lot 1.

Thank you. The developer of Crossroads Point Phase 2, they just need to vacate a 25-foot cross-access easement that's no longer needed. We don't currently have a process for partial plat vacations, so we're just treating it as a normal plat and bringing it through Planning Commission and Council. Planning Commission recommended unanimous approval, and I haven't had any calls of opposition or anything. Okay.

Any questions?

Move to approve the partial plant vacation as represented in MPC 2026-16. Second.

Motion made and second. Roll call starting with Councilman Schaefer.

Mayor Black? Yes. Councilwoman Brother? Yes. Councilwoman Nuttery? Yes. Mayor Jensen?

Yes. Motion passes. Item 12, discussion, consideration, action, and or possible amendments to adopt the Mother Road Plaza flag project.

Good evening, members of council. I was appointed the public spokesperson for this about five minutes ago. So I'm forcing my cohorts to come up here. Curtis, come on. With me is Gary Bonwar and Curtis Blanc, and I am Scott Law, a member of the Lions Club here. And about a year ago, the three civic clubs within El Reno, the Rotary Club, the Lions Club, and the Kiwanis Club all came together to develop a project that we felt was of interest for Route 66 and what we call the Mother Road Plaza project. and it represents eight flags of all the states that are involved in route 66. a lot of soul searching went into this project to try to figure out where we were going to place it we considered the mobility hub at one point we considered adams park we considered other places But what really drew us to the location we picked is the fact that so many people go to Sid's, they eat a burger, they step across the street, they take a photo at the Caboose, they take a photo at the Route 66. And so we picked that location. And originally, we had the flags actually facing on the street. But then better judgment prevailed, and we figured out that as you would drive around the corner on that street, you would never see the flags. at that point, so we opted to move them back towards the back of the lot. And at this point, we are about 75% funded based upon contingency of this council approval of the location and the project. And we feel like we'll have no problem getting the other percentage to get kicked in because we haven't reached out to the other states fully yet that are involved in this. Another thing that we've put together with Councilman Netherly's help is we were able to set it up in such a way that there would be no cost to the city whatsoever. The three civic groups are 100% paying for the installation of everything. And that includes the maintenance down the road. The city will not have to brother in the responsibility of the maintenance coming down the road. We're going to take what's left over from the installation, put it in an endowment fund, use the interest out of the endowment fund to help pay for the flags, the maintenance, and anything moving forward at that point. Plus, we've worked out amongst all three civic clubs that we will share responsibility to go clean it up, change out a flag if we need to change out a flag, and the outgoing club will go to do that job so that the incoming club has a completely clean project at that point. And so what we're seeking is permission from the council to consider this location for us to do this project. Any questions? I'll stand for any questions.

I think it looks great.

Do we have a rendering of the project? I thought we did. Zach, do we have the other photo? Yeah, there should have been another one. All right.

They've got a copy in there.

I will say on the other photo that my AI skills are limited. The signage will not block the sidewalk. I love the sign. I couldn't figure out how to move it. It's a big rock. But I think a rock is what they're planning to use for the signage.

Yes, anything there, Gary? Sounds great to me. Curtis? Sounds great.

I really think this does a good job of making that area look complete.

And the plan is construction in October. So the flags are raised November 11th on the actual 100th anniversary.

That is our goal.

Which also everybody will be off work.

And we're hitting bank first very hard because as you can see in Amy's presentation, their signage shows up very well.

I did mention to Adam at SIDS across the street, I showed him this rendering one day, and I said, what would you think if this was right across the street here from SIDS? And his eyes got about that big, you know, and he said, what can I do to help make that happen? I said, well, we've got everything in line here. I think it's going to happen. So I haven't ran into anybody that doesn't think it would be a neat asset to the development of what you guys are doing down there.

I might add that we have one of the best flag guy to put this up in the state of Oklahoma.

He's been all over the place, and he'll be number one. He's offered to do this, selling us all the material it costs, discounting the labor. He said, you guys are writing history over there, and I want to be a part of it. And so we need to figure out how to put his name on a flagpole somewhere. But that's budget flag in Oklahoma City. He has some ties to El Reno. I'm not sure what they are, but he has some ties to here, and he's really excited about doing the project.

You know, on this rock, on this rock, if we could get engraved the general route, right, just that line, and with a star right in the middle. That's a great idea. You are here, right?

Yeah.

Just across that. Instead of saying the Mother Road, show the Mother Road. Right? Yeah. Or if there's room, do it both.

Two-sided rock.

Get another rock on the other side.

Of course, I have questions on the other steps we need to take. Is the plan that the poles themselves will be put into the ground so they're going to become the property of whoever owns those sites in the city? Yes. And at this point, I'm understanding that you all are going to be maintaining the poles and the flags. Yes, we are.

Yeah, that's our goal so that nothing befalls back to the city.

So I might just recommend to this body that we do some kind of a maintenance agreement with the clubs because clubs have some turnover, right? There might be new faces coming in here and there and might not understand that they are responsible for the maintenance. So that would be my only suggestion is... maybe at the October meeting, if you all are agreeable to that and you've been able to secure the rest of your funding, that we do some kind of a maintenance agreement so that everybody's clear on who's going to take care of what and who's going to pay for what. That's reasonable.

Would you like for us to draft that and give it back to you?

I think I'd prefer to just do it. Okay, perfect.

That was the answer we were looking for. In order to make this November the 11th date, we probably need our contractor to have a contact with the city somehow.

So the plan could be Tim. Tim's wanting to meet with you on some lighting and some other things anyway. That'd be great. So that'll be the next step as soon as we take this vote, where I move to approve the Mother Road Plaza flag project.

Second. Sounds good.

Motion made and seconded. Roll call starting with Councilwoman Nethery.

Yes.

Yes. Motion passes. Thank you, guys. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Item.

And thank you for bringing this to your clubs to reinvest in this city. Very few clubs do that, and this is huge, and it's a lot of money. Thank you. Thank you.

Item 13, discussion, consideration, action, and or possible amendments regarding ordinance number 9417, an ordinance relating to the honorary street designations within the city of Elrond, Oklahoma, establishing a program for honorary street names and signs, providing eligibility, applications, review, approval, signage, cost, duration, removal, and administrative requirements, providing that An honorary designation does not change the official name or address of any street or property providing for severability, providing for repealer.

I was contacted by Ms. Chloe Shaw, the granddaughter and family member, Jim Shaw and his wife.

Jaquita.

Jaquita Shaw, both educators from El Reno. Professor Shaw was a professor at Railings Community College. His wife, I believe, taught at the junior high and the high school, as I understand it.

Ninth grade algebra.

Ninth grade algebra, okay. Great people, and she just asked to be able to honor her grandparents. Mr. Shaw was murdered in his home in 2007. I believe it was 2007. And so they lived there by the, right off of the Parkview Drive. And she would like to put a honorary sign in their memory there. We didn't have any mechanisms to do that prior. So we, Tim drafted an ordinance or a copy of an ordinance to present to Utah House to do that going forward. Again, it doesn't change the actual street name. It's just an honorary sign for the,

Move to approve ordinance 9417. Second.

Motion made. Second. Roll call starting with Dr. Schaefer. Yes.

Vice Mayor Black. Yes. Councilman Brothers. Yes. Councilman Henry. Yes. Mayor Jenkins.

Yes. Motion passes. Item 14, discussion, consideration, action, and or possible amendments regarding resolution number 27-008, resolution renewing the downtown revitalization program.

Okay. This is being brought back to you again, I believe, for the third or fourth year in a row, fourth time, renewing our very popular program of allowing people to apply for a stipend from the city to go and make some improvements to their property. Last year, this was expanded to include additional properties outside of downtown for those properties along Route 66. This year, the only change that we're really making in there is instead of putting a dollar cap in there, it says it's going to be whatever money is set aside in the budget specifically for the project. And so with the budget that was adopted back in May, we put $100,000 in for the program. And if by chance the money gets used up, it would be as simple as us coming back to the council and saying, hey, we're ready to put some more money into it.

So it's still the per address cap of five?

Correct.

Okay.

moved to adopt resolution 27-008. Second.

Motion made and seconded. Roll call starting with Councilwoman Miller.

Yes. Councilman Brothers. Yes. Vice Mayor Black. Yes. Councilman Schaefer. Yes. Mayor Jensen.

Yes. Motion passes. Reports. I just, we've been through a lot the last several weeks and I just once again want to thank all of our city staff, all of our citizens. Um, Public Works, I mean, really every department in El Reno pulled together to help us find the private water leak and get that taken care of, but it was just a very stressful several days, but it also pulled our community together and pulled our departments together to work as a team and do our best to try to find out, number one, what was going on, where we were losing water, And I can't say thank you enough to the citizens for being patient with us. And public works guys, a lot of those guys, Came out at 1 a.m. and worked until the evening the next day. They called me at 4.30. I got up and helped them in the field to help them try to find the leak. And it was difficult to find. I mean, we were in such dry conditions that it takes time. The ground will really soak up a lot of water, and it takes time for things like that to show up. But as I did say, we are in extreme drought and it's extremely hot and be very mindful of your animals that are outside. I know my neighbors lost their actual dog that they had because it was, it's used to living indoors, but it was, they were away on a vacation. It was staying, I don't know, with family or friends, but they had it outside and I don't know that, dog got too hot and passed away. And it's just, you know, sad. I asked the little kids whenever they got back where the dog was, and they said, well, they got big old tears in their eyes and stuff. So it's too bad. But I mean, it is, we need to be praying for rain. El Nino's supposed to be coming, and I'm sure it will at some point. And that typically brings rains to this area, but it's not here yet. And to have a few chances this week but it's going to take long-term major rain to replenish the our water supplies or aquifers I mean our water supply as far as the city of El Reno is very safe and very adequate but it does show us going through that that we do need to we can't back off on our infrastructure and needs i mean we took action tonight to update our meters which were scheduled to to be updated but also with that we need to it shows we need to build more storage you know we're on average using three and a half million gallons of water a day we can store about 4.2 million At the least, we need 7 million gallons of finished water storage. There's ways to get there. Obviously, it takes money to do it, but it's very important that we don't back off working on our infrastructure. It just has to be on the forefront. We're a growing community, and water is very critical. None of us can live without it. Our pets and animals can't. But it's really one of the most important factors. As cities grow and go forward, those that have water and access to it and can deliver it will grow. Those that don't, they'll struggle. I just want to say thank you to everyone. It's an honor to serve. That's all I have.

I wanted to give an update on the Clear the Shelter event that we approved last month with the waiver of the adoption fees. We had 10 animals adopted during that week, which is great for those pets and for our shelters. I appreciate Council's support with that, and it turned out to be a great event. And Liz, it was another great step towards Liz's development of a partnership with Best Friends non-profit group. more positive that story.

Yeah, that's good. That's good. I mean, I'm sad. I mean, what else to tell you, but keep, you know, keep them cool and watered.

Well, I would echo what Steve said about our staff. We have the best staff out there. The way that you guys worked together was incredible, and then also Chief Brown and Your leadership was a lifesaver. It was almost like you've been in an emergency before. We appreciate you.

I agree. I mean, Chris and his staff and Chief Duff and everybody in the police department, all of you. I mean, you all came together, and it shows that this is a community. I mean, it's – and that's what we are, is a community. I mean, it's great to see residents here tonight to actually talk with us and voice concerns and stuff. I want you to know it's heard, and we do care, and we want to hear from you. I mean, it's what we're here for is to make this community better. Somebody I'd like to point out, Cassie Bright. I mean, just a resident that's coming around, and she's been working out. Nobody's asked her to do it, but she's cleaned up flower beds. She's pulled the stickers out of the lake. I mean, that's what community is about is people like Cassie just coming along and just seeing something wrong And just fixing it. I thank her.

And then to have civic clubs come together out of the kindness of your guys' hearts and seeing something and just making it good. Just reviewing our agenda tonight, every one of these things is about community development. It's just positive stories. It's moving in that direction. Whether it's downtown, it's fixing water problems that makes our infrastructure better, it's tourism, it's quality of life. We talk about it all the time, quality of life, quality of life. Those things are real and there's real ways to go about it. With this staff and with the professional staff and with the architects and just everybody that's involved in civic clubs and individuals, Cassie, it really is a good thing. It's been an awful summer. It's just been dreadful for everyone and here we are still trudging along in what was a nationwide story, although it shouldn't have been in my opinion, by inflammatory outside reporting possibly. Chief, to have you stand up and just take ownership of it is just fantastic. It's just who we are. I feel like it represented us as a community really well. It was just something that happened. We had the manpower and the services to go out and find it, fix it, and we move on. And we learn from what we need to. We already were working on the meters ahead of time. Coincidentally, tonight, we wish we had this three years ago. We wouldn't have spilled that many, probably, and we could have gotten it fixed. But these types of problems happen, and we've got to learn from them, and we've got to fix them and move on. So well done, everybody. Moving in the right direction, and glad to be a part of it.

All I can say is we're blessed. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart with the people that we have working, our guys in the road, our guys in the ditches, our water plant guys, our gals, and city hall. But I also have to say that I've had the pleasure of serving the city of El Reno for a long time and have worked with multiple councils. And I'm not one to blow, but Thank you for your support during all that time. And to be honest with you, we've had four events since June 20th. Not that I'm counting. There has not been one of those that I haven't received a phone call or text. How you doing? What do you need? How can we help? And that means a lot to us as a family. The school system was awesome and helped us step in. I got a phone call that morning and said, how can we help? And they supplied equipment, they supplied manpower. We even had football coaches doing drums. I mean, so it was an awesome time. We have a great group. I'm proud to serve. Thank you for recognizing, but it's actually my pleasure. And I thank you for everything. Okay.

Good news is, I don't get to be Buzzkill.

We got our sales tax numbers in today. Sales tax for the month of September was $1,144,231.01, which well exceeds our monthly budget of $1,050,000. So this is three months in a row, which is great. On the use tax, We had an incredible $412,288.70, which is nearing doubling our monthly budget of $240,000. So again, really great movement on numbers. On hotel and motel tax, $45,521.08, which exceeds our monthly budget of $36,900. So the question got asked, are we maybe getting out of that deficit mode over there? Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to that yet, but hopefully we'll have an answer for you in the next couple of days.

Well, Tim, just to add to it, those are the best numbers for this month in the last seven years. So, you know, it's, I mean, some of them, six, seven, eight, nine years. So that's good. So keep shaking people or doing whatever you're doing. Thank you.

For broadband, we are at 962 active service lines. We're installing access fiber north of Foreman. And then the first apartment complex that we built, installs are going well. We're having a good turnout there. So when people are enjoying the service, we're just trying to figure out how to continue building more apartment complexes because they keep calling. But that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Good, good.

Move to adjourn into executive session.

Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second.

Second.

Ready? Move to come out of executive session.

Second. Motion made to come out of executive session. Roll call with Councilwoman Meadows.

Yes.

Councilwoman Brothers. Yes. Vice Mayor Black. Yes. Councilman Schaffer. Yes. Mayor Jensen.

Yes. Yes.

Move to allow city staff to proceed with appraisals of the following five properties, 516 North Miles, 716 South Rock Island, 1408 Sunset, 1508 South Choctaw, and 2408 Sunset.

Second. Second. Roll call started.

Councilman Schaefer.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Black. Yes. Councilman Brothers. Yes. Councilman Nutter. Yes. Mayor Jensen. Yes.

Move to authorize the city attorney to file suit against Heston Lepp and the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office pursuant to 70 OS 3311. Second.

Motion made and seconded. We'll call the story of Councilwoman Nedder.

Yes. Councilman Brothers. Yes. Vice Mayor Black. Yes. Councilman Schaefer. Yes. Mayor Jensen. Yes. Move to adjourn. Second.

Motion made and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye.